Christmas with the Bomb Girls

by Daisy Styles

  After struggling into their coats, the giggling children ran outside, where, with Matron’s help, they busily rolled snow to make a snowman. Matron popped a woolly bobble hat on the snowman’s head. ‘Now we need some little stones for his eyes and some twigs for his mouth and nose.’ The children scattered across the garden, where Billy kicked a ball that had been left out in the snow. ‘Ball!’ he gurgled as he ran after it, waving his hands in the air.

  ‘Get the ball,’ Matron laughed as she helped the other toddlers roll a snowball.

  Billy chased the ball, which rolled away, so he stopped beside a bush and tried to break off some twigs, but when the freezing cold wood wouldn’t bend Billy hunkered down to see if there were any twigs down below. Scraping away the snow, he found no twigs but something else instead.

  ‘What have you found, Billy?’ Matron asked as she approached the little boy.

  ‘Ball!’ he cried in delight as he pointed at a large, dark metal object, half of which was buried in the ground, whilst the upper part stood out starkly against the newly fallen snow.

  ‘Ball!’ cried Billy as he started to roll the ‘ball’ out of its hiding place. ‘Play ball?’ he asked.

  Matron smothered a gasp as she recognized what the ‘ball’ actually was. ‘Not now, darling,’ she said, then with lightning speed she picked up Billy and ran across the garden shouting, ‘Inside children, inside – right away.’

  Once inside the building, Matron instructed her staff in a quiet but very tense voice to get all the children out of the nursery straight away. Seeing fear on their faces, she said with added urgency, ‘Evacuate the nursery immediately.’

  As babies were wheeled away in their prams and toddlers filed out in an orderly line, Matron grabbed the telephone on her desk and in a trembling voice asked to be put through to Mr Leadbetter, the safety officer. Arthur was in fact sitting at his desk chatting with his wife, who was on her break. They were having a friendly argument about what Stevie would most like for Christmas. ‘A teddy bear!’ Violet had laughed in delight.

  Arthur shook his head as he teased her. ‘He’s a little lad; he’d prefer a toy car.’

  The shrill ring of the phone interrupted their conversation. ‘Safety officer, speaking,’ Arthur said into the mouthpiece.

  His blood ran to ice as he heard the by now almost hysterical matron gasp, ‘I think we’ve found an unexploded bomb in the nursery garden! Please come quickly.’

  Arthur’s heart skipped a beat as he leapt to his feet. ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘I’ve evacuated the nursery,’ Matron answered quickly. ‘My staff are with the children. I told them to get as far away from the building as possible,’ she added breathlessly.

  ‘I suggest you do the same right away,’ Arthur advised as he put down the phone and quickly dialled the fire brigade.

  ‘Arthur,’ Violet said when she saw her husband’s face drain of colour. ‘What is it, what’s happened?’

  ‘The matron thinks she’s found an unexploded bomb in the nursery garden.’

  ‘Hello, hello,’ a male voice on the other end of the phone boomed.

  Turning away from Violet, Arthur spoke in curt professional mode. ‘We need all the emergency services at the Phoenix domestic site right away – there’s a possible unexploded bomb in the nursery garden.’ As he continued to give orders in a clipped urgent voice, he didn’t see Violet, directly behind his back, bolt out of the office.

  With Arthur’s words ringing in her head, Violet ran like a thing possessed out of the factory. She didn’t follow the main road to the domestic site, which ironically the children from the nursery, led by the carers, were marching along in the other direction. Instead, she took the shortcut across the despatch yard that most of the working mothers usually took. ‘Stevie,’ she panted as she ran. ‘Stevie – wait for Mummy, sweetheart, Stevie, Mummy’s coming, Stevie wait for me!’

  Inside the factory, Tommy Dorsey replaced Joe Loss and his orchestra on the radio loudspeaker, which suddenly went dead and was replaced by the shrill sound of a siren going off. ‘Isn’t that the signal to evacuate the factory?’ one of the women called out to Malc.

  ‘It is indeed – everybody out!’ he bellowed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ a nervous woman asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet – let’s just do as we’re told and get out of the building. Come on, ladies,’ Malc said in his loudest but calmest voice. ‘Let’s be having you.’

  As the bomb-making machinery cranked to a slow halt and the bombs on the overhead conveyor-belt swayed precariously above them, the munitions workers, casting anxious glances at each other, hurried out of the factory. ‘Get yourselves as far away from the site as possible,’ Malc urged, as they filed by. Rosa, Nora and Maggie spotted Kit amongst the surging crowd of women.

  ‘Where’s Violet?’ they called out to Kit.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kit called back. ‘I didn’t see her come back from her break.’

  Afraid that they’d hold up the line by turning back to search for Violet, Malc quickly said, ‘I’ll nip back and have a look for her,’ he promised. ‘Just as soon as you lot are off the site.’

  After following the strict rules of safety protocol, Arthur slammed down the phone and turned around to find his wife had gone. ‘Violet?’ he called as he left the office and rushed into the corridor, where there was no sign of her. ‘Maybe she’s gone back to the filling shed?’ he thought to himself. But she couldn’t have gone there, he realized; the building was being evacuated. Then he remembered the last thing he’d said to her: ‘There’s an unexploded bomb in the nursery garden.’ With piercing terrifying clarity, he knew exactly where his wife would have gone. ‘Oh, Christ!’ Though his legs felt like they’d turned to water and would give way beneath him, Arthur ran across the despatch yard taking the same shortcut that his wife had used just minutes earlier. ‘VIOLET!’ he bellowed. ‘VIOLET!’ His blood ran cold when he recalled that he’d never told his wife that the matron had evacuated the children to safety. Feeling like his lungs would explode, he ran faster than he’d ever run in his life. ‘VIOLET!’ he yelled as he finally reached the nursery garden, where toys were strewn in the snow.

  As a blinding flash went off, Arthur moved like a man in slow motion. ‘VIOLET!’ he heard himself scream as the bomb exploded and flying debris mushroomed around him.

  Matron, with her staff and the children in their charge, heard the explosion too. Safe on the road between the factory and the open moors, the adults exchanged terrified glances. ‘Thank God, we got out,’ murmured Matron as she crossed herself. The sound of shrieking sirens followed by the sight of police cars, ambulances and the fire services brought a smile of relief to all their faces. The children clapped their hands in excitement and started to make ‘Nee-Naw’ noises like the police cars.

  ‘Well done, ma’am,’ a senior officer said to Matron when he saw them all safe and sound. ‘Keep on moving – the further away from here you are the better.’

  When the munitions workers heard the ear-shattering explosion, there was a general cry of fear.

  ‘It came from the domestic quarters,’ Kit said in terror.

  ‘Are the bloody Germans attacking us again?’ Nora panicked.

  ‘Impossible! There’ve been no planes flying over,’ Maggie, who was calmer, pointed out.

  ‘But it did sound like a bomb going off,’ Kit said anxiously.

  ‘And we still don’t know where the hell Violet’s got to,’ Nora fretted.

  Standing in the freezing cold on the moors with snow falling, the munitions workers were getting impatient.

  ‘What’s going on Mr Featherstone?’ they called out, as he approached with Malc by his side. Seeing the women’s fearful expressions, the manager came straight to the point. ‘A bomb has gone off in the Phoenix nursery garden,’ he started. A number of women, including Kit, cried out when they heard this. ‘Don’t worry,’ Mr Featherstone called loudly over the commotion. ‘Matron go
t all the children out in good time; they’re alive and well,’ he assured his workers.

  ‘Where are the poor little buggers?’ one desperate mother called out.

  ‘We’ve had a message from the rescue crew: Matron and her staff are with the children on the edge of the moors, just off the main road to the factory.’

  Without waiting for permission to leave, mothers with children in the nursery set off running.

  ‘I’m going to get Billy,’ Kit cried. ‘If you see Violet before I do, tell her I’ve gone to get the children,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Seeing the shivering women standing before him, Mr Featherstone quickly finished, ‘I advise you all to go home and get warm; we’ll send out word when the factory’s safe to return to.’

  Rosa suggested that Maggie and Nora should come back to the cowshed with her, but Nora was desperate to see her dad, who would be worrying himself sick about her. Maggie accompanied her friend into town, leaving Rosa to walk home wondering anxiously about Gladys in the Phoenix Infirmary.

  The fire and ambulance crew caught up with Arthur, who was gasping for breath after his frantic dash to the nursery; taking in the devastated children’s playground where blasted toys were strewn everywhere, and shrubs and trees wrenched from their roots lay burning where they’d fallen in the snow, the fire officer murmured, ‘Thank Christ they got the kids out.’

  ‘Check there’s nobody on the site,’ Arthur warned.

  ‘And go easy,’ the fire officer added. ‘There might be another bomb.’

  As the crews split up to search the premises, Arthur’s attention was claimed by a mangled pram, which had been blown sideways and still had a single wheel spinning inexorably round and round. The sound drew him towards the pram, which he recognized as Stevie’s; the very pram they’d saved all their money and their coupons for, the one Violet laughingly claimed her son sat in like a royal prince when she wheeled him to nursery every day. Though Arthur knew all the children were safe, his son’s name slipped from his lips, ‘Stevie?’ There was no response, nothing but the creaking of the slow-turning wheel. And then he saw her: she was lying motionless beside the upturned pram, on her side, her arms reaching out, her face covered by her glorious silky blonde hair. ‘VIOLET!’ Arthur began to wail. ‘VIOLET!’ he screamed. As he moved towards his wife’s body, which was covered in dust and blood, the ambulance team intercepted him.

  ‘Leave this with us, pal,’ they said gently, but Arthur fought them off like an animal about to be caged.

  ‘Get off me!’ he bellowed as he punched blindly at anybody who touched him. Falling to his knees, he sobbed as he turned to gaze at the prone body on the ground. ‘She must have been running to Stevie’s pram when the bomb went off,’ he gasped, as sobs ripped through his body. ‘She was trying to save our son!’ Arthur buried his face in his hands. ‘It’s all my fault,’ he cried. ‘It’s my fault,’ he repeated.

  As his cries became hysterical, his scream echoed out over the decimated site where his precious wife had lost her life. ‘Sweet Jesus Christ – IT’S ALL MY FAULT!’

  23. The Worst News

  Some hours after the explosion Mr Featherstone called Malc into his office, where he was told about Violet. ‘Arthur found her; they say she died searching for their baby,’ Mr Featherstone said as he wiped tears away from his eyes.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Malc gasped as he slumped into the nearest chair.

  ‘The rescue workers think that the bomb that killed Violet must have been dropped at the same time as the one that devastated the Phoenix only a few months ago,’ Mr Featherstone added.

  ‘It must have just sat where it landed until one of the kiddies found it. Matron said the child who discovered it thought it was a ball and rolled it towards her, which probably activated it once it was disturbed.’

  ‘It’s a blooming miracle the child’s alive,’ Malc exclaimed.

  ‘Matron said it was Kit’s little lad, Billy, who found it,’ Mr Featherstone told him.

  Lost in the horror of it all, Malc could only groan in disbelief. ‘Oh, God …’

  ‘Arthur’s been taken to Manchester Royal.’ Seeing Malc’s look of terror, he quickly added, ‘He’s okay – well, no injuries, but he had to be heavily sedated, the shock, you know,’ he said limply.

  Suddenly galvanized, Malc rose from his chair, ‘I’ll go and see the poor bugger right away,’ he announced.

  ‘They might not let you see him,’ Mr Featherstone warned.

  Malc turned to him with a face set like concrete. ‘Just let them bloody try and stop me!’ was all he said before he turned and left the room.

  A quarter of an hour later Malc was driving Edna in his old Rover (fuelled by black-market petrol) to Manchester Infirmary. Still in shock, Edna was weeping quietly into her handkerchief. ‘The poor kid, so young, so beautiful and happier than I’ve ever seen her.’

  Though Malc felt like weeping too, he was trying hard to focus on what lay ahead. Gripping Edna’s trembling hand in his, he said, ‘We’ve got to think of the living, sweetheart. Arthur and Stevie are going to need us more than ever before.’

  Edna nodded and stifled her tears, and when her breathing returned to normal she lit up two cigarettes, one of which she handed to Malc. ‘You’re right: we’ve got to do our best for Violet’s family,’ she said with a catch in her voice.

  Luckily, visiting time hadn’t quite ended, so they were allowed to see Arthur, though the sister did say to them, with a firm glint in her eye, ‘Mr Leadbetter is in a state of severe shock; please don’t overtire him.’ When they arrived at Arthur’s bedside, they thought he was asleep, but, hearing their footsteps, his eyes fluttered open. ‘Malc! Edna!’ he cried, looking utterly wretched. ‘Have you seen Stevie?’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s fine,’ Edna quickly assured the stricken man, though in truth she hadn’t a clue where Stevie was.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Arthur sighed, then his eyes drifted off and for seconds he just stared at the wall opposite his bed. ‘She ran off after Stevie when she heard about the bomb,’ he murmured as if he was talking to himself. Tears rolled uncontrolled down his cheeks. ‘I never told her Stevie was safe with Matron – that’s why she went to look for him,’ he sobbed. ‘If only I’d told her, if only I’d thought,’ he wailed in an agony of guilt. ‘It’s all my fault!’

  Seeing her patient in distress, the ward sister hurried over to the visitors, who were frantically trying to soothe Arthur. They were allowed to spend another ten minutes with him, and they reassured him over and over again that it wasn’t his fault in the slightest, but a tragic accident.

  Eventually Edna reluctantly turned to Malc and said, ‘I think we’d better go – the poor man is exhausted.’ But she promised tearfully that they’d be back very soon, that they were all here for him, and always would be.

  Before they could even say their farewells, the sister quickly whisked the curtains around Arthur’s bed; yet his agonized cries followed them out into the corridor. ‘I should have told her. It’s all my fault.’

  When Gladys and her colleagues saw flames licking the air near the nursery, they had wondered if they should evacuate the infirmary, but the rescue workers – after putting out the fire and thoroughly examining the infirmary – assured them it was safe. In a lather of anxiety, Gladys wondered where her friends were. The shock of the explosion had blown away her former lethargy: all she wanted now was to make sure the people she loved were safe. When her shift finally finished, she leapt on to her old rickety bike and cycled furiously to the cowshed, where she found a white-faced Rosa waiting for her. ‘Thank God!’ Gladys cried as she rushed to her friend and they clung on to each other for dear life. ‘I’ve been worried sick,’ Gladys admitted.

  ‘We were sent home,’ Rosa explained as she hugged Gladys tightly.

  Agitated and anxious, Gladys began to pace the room. ‘What about the others?’

  ‘They fine,’ Rosa assured her. ‘We left factory together, but no
t Violet; we don’t know where she go.’

  ‘Didn’t you check?’ Gladys asked sharply.

  ‘Malc stop us from going back to factory,’ Rosa explained. ‘We think Violet with Arthur.’

  Gladys gave a little smile, ‘Well, he’s the safety officer, so she’ll be fine.’

  At Yew Tree Farm, Kit was worried sick about Violet. When she’d arrived on the moors where the matron and her staff were guarding their precious little flock, Violet wasn’t there as she’d been expecting.

  ‘Where’s Stevie mum?’ Kit asked Matron, who shook her head.

  ‘She hasn’t shown up so far; perhaps you’d be kind enough to take charge of Stevie for the time being.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Kit as she took Violet’s son in one arm and held on to Billy with her spare hand.

  Once home, she and Ian bathed the babies, then between them they fed Billy a boiled egg and soldiers, whilst Stevie ravenously sucked on his bottle of warm milk. ‘He must be wondering what’s happened to his mama, poor child,’ Kit said, as she sat by the Aga with Stevie on her knee. ‘Where could she be, Ian?’ Kit fretted. ‘Do you think we ought to drive over to the domestic site just in case she’s there?’

  ‘Darling,’ he reasoned, ‘the domestic site is right next door to the nursery; they must have been evacuated by now – that’s if it’s still standing,’ he added grimly.

  ‘How will either of them know where Stevie is?’ Kit continued to fret.

  ‘Hopefully Arthur or Violet will have heard from one of the girls that you picked up Stevie and they’ll come looking for him here,’ Ian replied.

  Billy waved his bread soldiers in the air and burbled, ‘Ball! Play ball!’

  ‘Where did you find a ball, sweetheart?’ Ian asked curiously.

  ‘Play ball in snow,’ Billy babbled.

  Little knowing what a lucky escape Billy had had, both of his parents looked at one another and smiled. ‘Well, for all of today’s drama, Billy seems to have had a good time,’ Ian chuckled.

  About an hour later, there was a loud knock on their front door. When Ian opened it, he knew from the grim expressions on Malc’s and Edna’s faces that something was badly wrong.